I went to Hong Kong to see how a different group of people sort themselves into a society, how they navigate their neighbors, how they navigate a hostile world. Of course, six months in a city does not an expert make. There are competing tensions in my own observations: how much am I confirming external observations, biases that have trickled into my brain separately from my lived experience? On the other hand, must I supply the world with original fresh takes, revealing hitherto unseen truths about Hong Kong? I had many reasons to spend some time in Hong Kong, but the biggest reason for me wanting to spend time there was my suspicion that a denser population leads to a more dynamic environment: more ideas being shared, more connections available for each person, more shared spaces to mingle. With that prior in mind, first impressions can be very revealing! Have I learned anything interesting about the city-state? 

I think the nature of Hong Kong as a once city-state augments locals’ attachment to the territory, whereas on the contrary Los Angeles without a history as a bespoke territory reduces attachment to the place itself. To me, this is less due to borders and rather almost entirely due to the size differences between the two locales. Oh the sheer size difference! As an example,  Long Beach’s District 1 has a population of around 50,000 people. Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district encompasses a similar total area, but houses more than 160,000 people while still reserving significant amounts of area for natural spaces such as hills, hiking trails, stadiums, and parks. A lot of takeaways from my time in Hong Kong take me back to reflections on density, land use, and geography as a whole. 

The density difference between Wan Chai District and Long Beach is much less than I thought: Hong Kong Island’s districts are generally only 3x denser than Long Beach’s districts. This is partly because there is a lot of mountainous terrain in Hong Kong, so a lot of the acreage in a given district is not heavily populated. This means that the building density in the built-up areas in Hong Kong probably exceeds Long Beach’s densities by 4x or more. Indeed, the vibe is much more lively in Wan Chai, even late at night, and this is after Covid, which saw a net outflow of residents from Hong Kong Island. I didn’t realize before going through this exercise that only doubling or tripling the density of a place could have such a large impact on its daily experience.

Parts of Wan Chai and Hong Kong island were built before cars took over the personal transportation space, and other large swaths have of course been built afterwards. It’s interesting to see the effects of land reclamation and how land use has changed over the years. While streets get wider as the land reclamation dates approach present day, it’s heartening to see that pre-existing pedestrian routes are extended over new roadways and access to the harbour is maintained. The sheer number of pedestrian overpasses (skybridges) can be overwhelming, especially because it means surface level pedestrian access across busy streets/highways are fewer and further between. Navigating between point A and point B might therefore require taking detours to find skybridges where my brain might have been accustomed to taking the shortest direct route. In this way, the increased density of Hong Kong allows for urban design that’s “both” transport-centered and human-centered. 

These skybridges have become part of the fabric of Hong Kong’s landscape within the last 60-70 years. Despite the periodic grapples the city has with its identity, new developments both private and public seem to invariably include plans for a skybridge or overpass to improve access for pedestrians. It feels unthinkable to me that major new developments or construction could disregard that type of access. If Long Beach were to triple its density in the downtown district, I don’t know that skybridges would follow as a natural consequence (though I wouldn’t complain). Rather than just a consequence of Hong Kong’s density, skybridges speak to something ingrained in Hong Kong’s identity.

To spend a weekend in Hong Kong is to experience the city in a totally different season compared to the work week. The city swells in size with tourists visiting from surrounding countries and visitors from Mainland China. Although the city’s residents get a much later start to the day than many mainlanders or tourists, they too eventually fill the streets on their way to see friends or family. Most striking however is the sight of public spaces filled with Hong Kong’s domestic workers taking their days off. Generally speaking, Hong Kong’s domestic workers get one day off per week, and the majority of workers choose Sunday as their day off. From dawn till dusk, you’d be hard pressed to find a skybridge, park, or underpass that hasn’t had some space claimed by workers on their day off. 

While the experiences of domestic helpers are not uniform across their ranks, the vast majority will spend most (if not all) of their week in their employers’ homes, isolated from their social circles and families. Foreign born workers, who make up a large percentage of total domestic workers, experience a greater isolation especially early in their first few years of employment. Initial contracts provide seven total days of annual vacation and employers aren’t required to pay for any return travel except in the case of emergencies. While these benefits improve over time (more vacation days, more home visits, more expenses covered), the reality remains that domestic workers in Hong Kong are generally cut off from their social circles. Additionally, domestic workers cannot attain permanent residency in Hong Kong even if they meet other requirements for the legal status. Their visa status bars them from many legal protections that other residents enjoy, which results in a class of worker easily abused, given their isolation and the employer’s control of their living situation.

For this reason, the extent to which domestic workers claim their day off is all the more striking! To walk around a park on a Sunday is to witness people worshipping, talking to their families, playing games or chatting with friends, rotting on social media, performing for social media, exercising, or a plethora of other activities. Shops and restaurants are filled, embassy buildings and adjacent blocks are abuzz with activity, and outdoor markets are packed. Class division in Hong Kong is a feature that becomes more and more apparent as I spend time in the city, and the treatment of domestic workers is one of the more easily discerned aspects of this classism. With that said, the liveliness of the workers during their free time is an indelible aspect of the city and makes obvious their contributions to the city’s identity.

As we can see in those map comparisons above, while there are millions of people who live in Hong Kong, the territory as a whole is quite small, to say nothing of Hong Kong Island itself which is tiny. So there are tons of people to meet, but there are also many opportunities for synchronicity, with many occasions where I would run into some friends at a bar or cafe when hanging out with a different group of friends! It was a lot of fun to join a choir, then join a second choir and see familiar faces, join a third choir, and start to realize just how interconnected the singing scene is. Similarly, a friend of mine with a shared dragonboat hobby may find mutual friends from other competitive fitness outlets. Overall, there seem to be many avenues for people to explore their passions and to express themselves. Additionally, each scene also seems fairly tight knit with many opportunities for cross-pollination across adjacent hobbies. 

This ability to encounter people serendipitously in daily life, combined with the connectedness of separate networks reminds me a bit of university campuses, which are of course designed to encourage this type of network building. Hong Kong being a world city makes the effect an order of magnitude larger, but in effect I was getting a similar vibe to my time in university when out and about in Hong Kong.

I think this plays into one large takeaway I had from my time in Hong Kong, which is the unique (in my experience) response to people in need. The Tai Po fires in November 2025 affected a few buildings in a relatively far-flung neighborhood of Hong Kong. However, the degree and effectiveness of support for the fire victims stands out to me to this day. Due to the relatively few city centers in the territory, everyone has friends or family that live in Tai Po. And due to the interconnected networks, one person’s connection to Tai Po can easily become the conduit for many people to feel connected to the events taking place in that city. In the same vein, people with connections to aid and charity networks are also easily able to broadcast those needs to interconnected groups of people. Hong Kong is a city full of non-locals and transient people. However, there were a plethora of effective channels for even expats or temporary residents to get involved in relief efforts. 

Looking back at the skybridges, at the MTR subway network, and residential building density, it’s telling that a lot of these projects have been spearheaded by private ventures. Many salient aspects of Hong Kong come from private interests bulldozing their way into making their mark on a place, not surprising for a city famous for a permissive attitude towards private interests. There are many attempts to call attention to private projects and label them as quintessential Hong Kong, such as the Ngong Ping sky tram, or the Peak Tower, but most of these developments don’t strike me as being emblematic of Hong Kong’s nature. They are merely efforts to maximize profits for developers, not additive to my understanding of the city. On the other hand, the liveliness of a skybridge on a Sunday, engaging in Carousel meetups for free/used goods at the MTR stations, or witnessing the diversity of people playing in the sitting-out areas (small parks) gives life to these other ventures. There are likely just as many private ventures that fail to give identity to Hong Kong as those that do. Conversely, there are elements of Hong Kong’s identity which have thrived despite the lack of equivalent private support such as the arts and music (though I imagine the lack of private support is one reason Hong Kong hasn’t been more of a cultural powerhouse).

What gives a city dynamism is its people. Interconnectedness, mutual support, and mobility seem to be core elements of Hong Kongers, which then reflects on the city’s identity. When private, public, or individual efforts push in directions aligned with these values, those efforts go much further than when efforts are made in other directions. At its core, Hong Kong is a city that maintains a low barrier to access people I love, and for that, I cannot help but love the city in return.